Building Better Regions Fund – Community Investments Stream – Round Six

The Building Better Regions Fund – Community Investments Stream – Round Six supports new or expanded local events, strategic regional plans or leadership and capability strengthening activities that provide economic and social benefits to regional and remote areas.

The minimum grant is $5,000 and a maximum of $1 million.

For most projects grant funding will be up to either 50% or 75% of your eligible project costs. Your location will determine the percentage of grant funding you can receive. You can fund your contribution from any source including state, territory and local government grants. Your contribution must be cash.

For small projects with a total grant amount of equal to or less than $20,000, grant funding will be up to 100% of eligible project costs.

Your project will need to deliver economic and social benefits to a regional or remote community.

As always, we strongly recommend you check out the Past Successful Grant Recipients for ideas on the types of projects that have previously received funding!

The objectives of the program are to:

drive economic growth
build stronger regional communities into the future.

The intended outcomes of the program are to:

create jobs
have a positive impact on economic activity, including Indigenous economic participation through employment and supplier-use outcomes
enhance community facilities
enhance leadership capacity
encourage community cohesion and a sense of identity.

Eligible Activities

To be eligible your project must:

be aimed at new or expanded local events, strategic regional plans, or leadership and capability strengthening activities that provide economic and social benefits to regional and remote areas
comprise one of the following activities:

local events,
strategic planning, or
regional leadership and capability

not have commenced.

Other activities may also be approved.

Local Events

Investment in local events provides economic, social and cultural opportunities for people living in regional areas. Events drive economic growth, promote community participation and inclusion, encourage volunteerism and build upon a region’s identity.

You can only receive funding for an event once under this program.
Funding is intended as seed funding for local events that:

are new to the community; or
support a significant addition to an existing event.

Applications for one-off events will need to demonstrate the long-term benefit to the community, including but not limited to media exposure, promotion of local businesses and visitors from outside the region.

Should your event be ongoing (e.g. annual), you will still need to demonstrate the long term benefits (as above) and also clearly outline your strategy to fund the ongoing event without Australian Government funding.

Events must take place after you execute a grant agreement with the Commonwealth.

Eligible activities for events include:

art and culture events, for example theatre productions, gallery exhibitions and Indigenous cultural events
community and public events, for example food festivals, field days, seasonal activities, veterans or memorial events
attracting new businesses or economic opportunities, for example hosting a conference or business event to coordinate and enable growth in a particular industry sector or address obstacles in accessing markets
community sporting events, for example an exhibition sporting match or hosting an interstate sports carnival
events attracting tourists and visitors to a region.

Strategic planning

Activities to facilitate the development of quality regional or sectoral plans which will help drive the development of strong regions. Plans should focus on pursuing economic opportunities and/or addressing identified challenges across a region or industry sector. You should develop plans in close consultation with key regional stakeholders.

Eligible activities include:

regional skills audits
research projects to support regional development strategic plans
collecting socio-economic information.

Regional leadership and capability

These activities will build the capability of regional leaders, equipping them with the skills to effectively drive change and champion positive futures for their communities. All leadership and capability activities will need to demonstrate clear and definitive outcomes including broad benefits for the community.

Regional leaders include key representatives from community organisations, local government, local industry leaders, local youth leaders, Indigenous leaders, and industry bodies.

Eligible activities include:

leadership courses
participation and community building measures for young people
participation in activities to improve local business and industry leadership capability.